Native Client Debut On Chrome

Native Client, an open-source technology for running native code in web applications, undertaken by Google has finally landed on Chrome 10, according to an official post on the Chromium blog. The technology enables developers to build web applications that seamlessly and safely execute natively compiled code inside the browser, with the goal of maintaining browser neutrality and OS portability.

Google released Chrome 10 beta with the first version of the software code-named 'Arctic Sea' in-built, with the aim of getting developers involved in building Native Client modules for Chrome applications.

Native Client (NaCl) is a step to enabling the convenience experienced in running programs natively on a PC, as against running same over the web. As web applications today greatly depends on JavaScript, which invariably limits the program's performance.

NaCl, on the other hand, will enable downloads directly from a web server with specific security mechanisms to keep-off malicious codes, and the browser ensures that the software executes safe operations, as the software is confined within the Chrome 'sandbox'.

Additionally, code libraries written in the C programming language can be relatively adapted for browser-based applications through the NaCl, making it easy, for instance, to build into web applications the codecs Skype uses for compressing and decompressing video and audio.

Google's stance as a great proponent of Cloud Computing technology also calls to bear on the implementation of the Native client in information storage and retrieval over a central server on the internet.

However, the extent to which this new technology can be applied outside the Chrome environment remains to be seen, nonetheless developers will need to play a very dominant role.